Game Development

Keep in mind this article is meant strictly for C++ game devs and not for application programmers or game devs of scripting/other languages. I have my own technique when it comes to OOP in C++. The game I'm deving right now(or we are making) is a simple windows console project. It's up to you to decide whether you'll use this technique. First let me tell you in which cases you might need this technique: if you're ready for a new look on OOP if you need a new toolset for your coding practice if you like to learn(which I clearly hope for) So, the technique then. Decide which you prefer more: classes or structures. This helps you understand what kind of objects you want in a game.

Programmer's Role in Game Development -part 3: Why is Coding Hard? This is the last of the three part miniseries which describes the programmer's role in the game development process . So how come it's so hard to code something? One of the main reasons is the need to be well-prepared for it which most programmers are not. In other words preparation-one or more of the following reasons include lack of being prepared for the task: the programmer is coding by the most difficult thing they learnt, which means they don't do what is in their capability but overstretching lack of test-driven development "determination" to make an average game, which can be boring in both terms of development and playing incomplete GDD lack of problem-solving attitude lack of a productivity plan So mental preparation is the main problem here: prepare yourself to code better and faster! go step by step, and work with what you have learnt so far, not of what you are ...

Programmer's Role in Game Development -part 2: Bug-less and Glitch-less Game It's not remotely easy to make a game which contains zero bugs and cheating glitches, but the rewards are awesome. If you manage to make one, it would mean the players wouldn't ever complain about the game mechanics. It's one of my goals for my game for it to have bug-less game-play and AI. AI is especially one of the reasons to make a bug-less game. All games have at least one bug in artificial intelligence which greatly degrades and dumbs the Artificial Intelligence. On the other hand, a very good AI doesn't include any bugs. You have to both prioritize your bugs("critical", "essential" and "trivial" in example), and make sure you solve them all. How do you make a bug-less game then? Not remotely easy, but it involves having a decent amount of alpha/beta testers. Also you need to be persistent, determined and decide fully you're going to h...

Non-linear quests I have shared so far my thoughts on non-linear stories, but let's expand on it and actually define how would it be used for quests. I have once tried to make a game with non-linear story, but when it came to actually making lore quests, I ran into a major block: how could one possibly make a dynamic story? The game design documentation for my game is already 30 pages long the quests would make it even longer. So there had to be found another approach. I was stuck there for months. Until I read about test-driven development. TDD or test-driven development strives to make game development process shorter, with less computer resources usage. But how would one create a quest which would connect to 20 different quests? Here are my ideas: - use Lucid Chart for diagrams of the quest structure tree - better organize your code - small amount of connections for each quest - read on object-oriented programming - make it more than a chore, the point is to have...

Roles of game development team members I think it's important to understand the various roles of a game developers of all kinds in order to understand what would a good game consist of. How can you can make a good game if you don't collaborate well with other teammates? This happens mostly if the workers have no clarity how the entire game process happens in detail. I will also explain my experiences as a member of an indie team, and my time of being the only developer in my team(which is at the time of writing and posting this). Project Leader Must be on top of the entire development process and is(but not exclusively) in need of understanding all other aspects and roles of the game development process. Lead Programmer Takes care of the coding process. Must be good at coding games. And has to code the game too. Programmer Coding is hard. It has to be done right, productively and requires making fast algorithms. Which is neither easy to learn, neither to do. One...

This is a very challenging topic and it inspired me after reading Raph Kostert's Theory of Fun for Game Design which concluded games are becoming more and more boring; and while you can certainly have some fun playing many games, they are decreasingly(if not equally) fun as games of previous millennium. As games are inspiration of other forms of art, this can be alarming and dangerous to the mankind. With this in mind, know that playing older games doesn't mean playing better games. So what can we do to fight this increasingly dangerous threat? This is the cause of this blog posts series. My goal is to make you understand better what a good game consists of. And also of course to help fight this threat to humanity(just like Raph Kostert is). Let's try to solve this problem in following points: -what is not fun in games? -what makes games repetitive? -what makes games overly addicting? -how to write an engaging story? -how to make engaging worlds and levels? -w...